


Go across the tracks

by BeesKnees



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Geese, Implied Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Haymitch and Effie met, and one time they meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go across the tracks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shampain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shampain/gifts).



o1.

Here is the truth you will not hear, not in the hallowed halls of the Capitol, but of which everybody knows all the same: Effie Trinket's birth is a bit of a scandal. Her father is from fine Capitol breeding; he is the son of one of the most refined families in all of Panem, second, perhaps only, to Snow. It is his bad luck to fall in love with a girl from One. This might have been acceptable if his parents had approved, if money had been put into the right hands, and the girl had been brought from One. But that isn't what happens. 

His parents don't approve, he puts money in all the wrong hands, and he ends up living in One with his new bride. They welcome Effie (Euphemia, named after her grandmother, the equivalent of spitting in the old woman's face) mere months after their marriage. Within five years, her father's business has fallen into ruin, and her father falls on his proverbial sword and asks his mother to take care of Effie.

Money undoes the process: Effie is shipped into the Capitol like packaged goods. Her last name is stripped away, and she is renamed Trinket, her grandmother's own last name. But all the money in the world doesn't erase the scandal, and it plagues poor Effie all throughout school. Her surest defense is the way she ignores it all: charming and bubbly to the end. 

At 16, she makes the bold decision to forgo coming out, and pleads with her grandmother to be sent to escort school instead. (She will not beholden herself to beg for a marriage from families who turn their noses up at her.) Her grandmother relents and a veritable fortune is paid to pave the way. (Effie is far younger than most of the candidates, but she is accepted. It is a precarious position, one that makes or breaks a man or woman. But why should all the glory go to the districts when it comes to the Hunger Games? Effie will win some for her own.) 

The Quarter Quell is her coming out in that way. With each party they attend, she graciously drops her news into the social sphere: _I will be an escort who makes history. I will be an escort who brings home victors_. (But not to brag, because that certainly isn't ladylike.)

At the end of the Quarter Quell, her grandmother brings her to tour the training facility, which their family has helped pay for. This is her social call of the year, where she walks through the halls, thanking each individual who helped make the Games possible on behalf of their family, President Snow, and the government. 

Effie tags along, a dutiful little shadow. (Her grandmother refuses to allow her to wear one of her newly minted wigs for the occasion. They are all to be saved for when she starts schooling. So, Effie does her hair up in an elaborate scarf wrapping instead, which is nearly as good. She wears a silver gown, the bodice done in flowering lace with a high neckline. The skirt is pale tulle. Match lace gloves are made, her nails done in glistening silver. Her shoes are a shocking pink, towering heels made to draw attention all the way down to her toes. Her balance, impeccable as always, is the one thing that always garners her grandmother's approval.)

She doesn't mean to wander off into the training facility. It's just easy to get lost. Without warning, she's looking down corridor after corridor without a clue as to where she is. She nods at each person she passes, making it look as if she's going exactly where she needs to.

She finds herself in the stretch of hospital in the lowest level. Only one room is occupied, and she knows who it is instantly. Who doesn't? The victor of the Quarter Quell, himself: Haymitch Abernathy. He is better-looking in person, she appraises, although shorter. (She thinks. It's not exactly easy to tell when he's lying down.) He's pale, head tossed to one side against his shoulder. (She remembers the exciting thrill of watching him collapse onto the ground, bleeding out steadily, but resilient in his efforts. It had been a shock that he won, stripping a Career of her title. But Effie finds that she likes the surprise victors more than the ones who are easy to guess – and nobody would have guessed that Haymitch Abernathy of District 12 was going to take him his crown by using the forcefield as a weapon.)

She glances back at the door and then lifts up the edge of the blanket to look for the scar from where the axe smacked into his stomach. His skin is bare, darker than her own. 

“Who're you?”

Effie nearly jumps at the mumbled words, the blanket falling back into place. Haymitch Abernathy's grey eyes pin her with obvious disdain. (Please, she thinks. She sees worse on the faces of her classmates everyday.)

“Effie Trinket,” she burbles, holding out her hand delicately. 

“Fuck off,” he tells her and rolls onto his side, the expanse of his back to her. 

(His less than positive reception does nothing to derail her. _He does not know who she is_ , after all.)

 

o2. 

Effie is 21, in her final year of schooling. One of their last lessons consists of going through each of the districts, meeting with the victors who reside there. (Effie spends most her pre-trip arrangements fretting over her wardrobe. The trip will take two weeks, and just how is she supposed to fit everything into the single suitcase allocated to each of them? Appearance is just as fierce a competition – if not fiercer – among the escort candidates than the stylist candidates. Appearance for an escort was everything: They are the embodiment of the Capitol to the districts, and that's a responsibility Effie takes a grave matter.) 

The earlier districts are little more than parties for them: the celebration of the culmination of their education. But the outlying districts are where many escort candidates meet their demise. They are each judged on their ability to handle the environments waiting for them in the poorer districts. 

(Effie is the first off the train in Eleven. While the rest are google-eyed, staring out the windows, she descends to elegantly shake Chaff's hand, and doesn't flinch when he presents her with the stump instead of remaining good hand.

“May I say what an honor it is to meet you,” she trills.)

By the time they reach Twelve, Effie can tell which of her fellow candidates are going to fail – and the lot of them have run out of outfits. She on, the other hand, emerges in a sleek red dress, heavy with beading; she has a matching head band with a frill of a feather snug around her short black wig. Her gloves are a transparent black.

When they disembark, no one is there to greet them, and this doesn't seem to surprise their teacher. He takes them about Twelve anyway, and the residents all stare at them. Effie smiles brightly. (How lucky they must feel to see something so lovely, she thinks.) 

They eat dinner at the mayor's house, a largely somber affair that Effie tries to improve upon with an incessant amount of chatter. (Oh, how clever the mayor's wife must be to make drapes out of such challenging material! But the effect really is quite lovely, and it balances out the rest of the house so well. Doesn't everyone think so?)

Effie voluntarily takes a tour of the rest of the house while her compatriots march back to the train. The mayor offers to walk her back to the train, but they are only halfway when they stumble across a man splayed across the ground in front of a leaning building that has 'BAR' written on it in clumsy, thick letters. At first, Effie thinks the man is dead. She delicately holds one hand to her nose, but then the mayor sighs, looking away as if he's embarrassed. 

It takes Effie a couple of seconds longer to realize why: This is Haymitch Abernathy. Haymitch drunkenly rolls over onto his back and squints up at them. The good looks that his 16-year-old self had promised have come to fruition, but are wasted in the same instant: A week's worth of growth stubbles his face and his hair is unwashed. His shoulders have become broader, but he is unfit now. Lithe muscle has given way. Haymitch's face has gone gaunt from a diet consistently of alcohol. 

“We must help him home, must we not?” Effie asks with a demure smile. (If this is a test, she will ace it.) 

She valiantly helps heave Haymitch up (and in these heels!) and they totter down toward Victors' Village. She gets him up the stairs, the mayor huffing and puffing on the other side. 

“You smell funny,” Haymitch comments astutely, staring at her at one point. 

“It's Marina de Tonic's new perfume,” she tells him helpfully. They get him in bed and Effie helpfully picks out a clean set of pajamas for him. (She's insatiably curious about a victor's house; the few trappings don't seem to be Haymitch's, but most everything is covered in a layer of dirt or dust. It doesn't look like anybody besides him lives here.)

“You'll feel much better in the morning,” she assures him. He glares at her, begins to shrug off his shirt and pants, apparently not caring that she is mere feet away. She turns her back, but doesn't leave the room.

“It must be so wonderful to be such an inspiration to your district,” she tacks on.

“Oh, yeah,” Haymitch drawls sarcastically. “I really teach the kids how to put away their booze.”

“But,” Effie says, holding one hand in front of her, fingers pressed together, even though he can't see. “It is your responsibility to ensure they come home safely, is it not?” (Maybe she'll be in the inspiration for turning Twelve into a Career district: what a story that would be.)

“Sweetheart, they are better off dead,” Haymitch answers. 

“You cannot possibly mean that!” she says, and she turns around, pivoting on one heel. He hasn't quite managed to get his pants up, and when he sees her looking at him, he merely straightens, challenge clearly delivered.

Effie sniffs. 

“I've seen better,” she reassures him.

 

o3. 

“How would you feel about Twelve?” 

The question catches her off guard. 

“Ellayria is retiring?” Effie asks, intrigued. 

“I have it on good authority that she is,” Effie's companion, one of the stylists for District 11, Aemilia, answers. “I know it's not terribly glamorous, but if you make it in Twelve, they _have_ to pay attention to you.”

Effie hums out an answer, pleased with such news. The 64th Games are drawing to a close: Only the interview is left to be done, but it's another Career, another crushing loss for Twelve. They haven't shown any promise at all since Haymitch won his crown, and even then, he'd been wholly unexpected. The second Quarter Quell is spoken of only in hushed whispers, because _everyone_ knows that President Snow was particularly displeased with the outcome.

“Ellayria has been bringing candidates in and out all morning,” Aemilia confides. “To see how they get along with Haymitch.” 

Effie pops up to her feet, smoothing out her skirt. She adjusts her wig, purses her lips. She doesn't bother to ask how she looks, because she already knows: not a hair out of place. She walks straight down to the tribute center, where the mentors are kept for the duration of the Games. She gets in with a well-timed smile, and maneuvers easily through the halls until she runs into another hopeful escort walking out of a room, huffing. (This makes Effie smile at the more brightly.) 

She walks into the room, where Haymitch Abernathy (starting to develop quite the belly, isn't he?) is sitting next to Ellayria. Ellayria looks exacerbated, and Haymitch is wearing a frown deeper than Effie thought was humanly possible. When Ellayria sees her, she begins to page through a list, her own frown mirroring Haymitch's.

“Effie Trinket,” she announces, holding her hands poised in front of her. “I _am_ the solution to your problem.”

Haymitch presses a hand to his face and sinks lower into his chair. 

Ellayria merely looks dubious.

“You understand that this is an escort position for District Twelve?” she asks.

“Oh,” Effie answers in her most heartfelt way, pressing one hand dramatically across her heart. “But it is so much more than that. Because every district, no matter their wealth or status deserves an escort of quality, do they not? Is it not the same as an expression of the Capitol's love?”

“Fuck me,” Haymitch groans; he wrestles a flask out of his pocket. It's clearly empty but he tips it upside down as if another drop of alcohol will be coaxed from it.

(His outburst does nothing to deter Effie.)

“Mr. Abernathy,” she says gallantly. “Please rest assured that I will do everything in my power to bring _prestige_ to the people of District Twelve.” 

“How did you find one worse than you?” Haymitch asks, aghast, staring at Ellayria. He pushes his chair back and it tips backward, clattering to the ground. Haymitch ignores it and stalks out of the room. 

“I have references should they be needed!” Effie calls after him. 

“I hate you,” Haymitch answers.

 

o4.

In the 71st Games, Johanna hones her axes on the tributes of District 12. Effie watches, knuckles pressed to her mouth. (No one else is present, so she needn't hide her quiet distress at watching Twelve fail spectacularly once again – and when Effie was so certain that they were at least well-placed for a decent finish. Both of their tributes had been over 16, the boy raised in the mines, the girl a rather adept climber. Their scores had been passable. But no, Johanna Mason has revealed her true stripes, and has begun to work through the other tributes in quiet. They're both killed during the first night after their girl falls asleep during her watch. Blood speckles the camera screens.)

“Oh dear,” Effie sighs. She totters down to where the mentors watch the Games, but Haymitch isn't there. (Finnick Odair does wink rather cheekily at her as she peers in.) 

So, she heads back to the elevator and takes it to the top floor. The lights are all off in the room, but she knows Haymitch well enough to know that just means he doesn't want to be found. She finds him pressed in the space between the couch and the wall in the living room, a bottle of whiskey already mostly finished. 

She sighs. 

“Our tributes have fallen,” she says with an air of distinct solemness. 

“Figured.” He says it as if there are extra R's at the end. He doesn't look at her. 

“You know, Haymitch,” she says, trying not to sound _too_ testy. “If it distresses you so to see them die, why don't you _try_ training them.” 

“Because then I'd have to train 'em how to drink if they came back,” Haymitch answers flatly. 

“I refuse to believe that all victors are as _unhappy_ as you,” Effie argues. “Why, Finnick Odair is positively radiant. And Cashmere and Gloss are always smiling as well.”

Haymitch guffaws. Effie purses her lips. (How is she supposed to do anything when he moves almost directly against her? She is not to be deterred, but the sight of so much bloodshed this evening has even her spirits dampened.)

“It's not good manners to drink on your own,” she reminds him – perhaps with a touch of impatience. He passes the bottle back to her in offering. Effie stares at it, and then takes a handkerchief and delicately wipes the lip of it before taking a sip of the whiskey. 

Haymitch is so surprised by her accepting the bottle that looks up at her. (Breaking his own rule of never making eye contact with her.) He laughs.

 

o5.

“What did Seneca say?” Effie presses him the moment he walks back through the door. 

“Jesus,” Haymitch says, drawing out all the vowels. “Give me a second to breathe, would you?” 

She flaps her hand at him. 

“What did Seneca say?”

“I think he's gonna give them a chance, yeah,” Haymitch says, drawing a hand over his face. 

Effie can't hide her own excitement: She actually bounces on her heels, her hands clasped together. Before she's considered what's she doing, she throws her arm around Haymitch. 

“Woah,” he says, holding his hands up and backing off immediately.

“ _Haymitch_ ,” she breathes out, not bothering to temper herself. “We are going to make _history_. You and I are going to be the first team to bring home _two tributes_. Can you imagine?” 

“Unless Snow gets pissed and ends up killing all of us,” Haymitch says, mimicking her excitement. 

“Oh, pish-posh,” Effie answers, waving her hand at him again. “The odds are in _our favor_. The people want the odds to be in our favor! You should just _hear_ all the sponsors that are poring in!” She beams, and then hurries back over to present him with the list of all the calls that have come in while he's been off with Seneca Crane.

“How you don't break your damn neck in those shoes, I'll never know,” Haymitch says under his breath.

 

+o1. 

She arrives in Twelve on a muddy day in spring. She's been here so many times before that the moments blur together in her mind. (This is the first time she arrives and will not be playing the reaper.) 

She treks down a path she knows well, the ground sucking wetly at her feet. (Sneakers, she is loathe to admit.) For the first time, no one stares at her. She is scared by it, but finds it strangely intriguing. (She has never been invisible before in her life, and now she slips through crowds, unnoticed, unannounced.) 

Almost everything is new in Twelve. Rebuilt. Except for one place: Victors' Village. Those houses still stand, resilient. The angel in the middle of the square still stands one-winged, as if unsure whether she is coming or going. 

Effie moves to the only house that has smoking rising from it. (But of course, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are traveling to different districts, or so she's heard. They're in the Four at the moment, awaiting the birth of Annie Odair's son.) 

Effie knocks primly on the door. And yet, she is not surprised when no one comes to answer. Instead, she shuffles around back, already knowing where the key is hidden. In all this time, throughout all this chaos, it has remained unmoved. (For everything that has changed, it's the parts that are stationary that are more surprising.) 

She lets herself in the back door. 

Before she can step foot inside, a strange little squawk reaches her ears. She looks down to see an odd-looking bird staring back at her with quiet alarm. It squawks again. 

“Hello there,” she says in greeting.

“What the--” And there is the man she is looking for. Haymitch rounds the corner. His eyes are red, and his face is stubble-ridden (grey is starting to appear), but he looks sober. Or so Effie thinks. Three more of the little birds toddle after him in a curving line. 

He squints at her, and she watches the pieces click into place: It takes him a moment to realize exactly who is standing in his house. And then he laughs, a deep sound that carries from his belly. 

“Why, Miss Trinket,” he says prissily, trying poorly to mimic her accent. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Effie sniffs in answer. (She doesn't tell him that the Capitol is a suddenly unwelcome place, and that she doesn't know precisely what she's supposed to be doing there. She doesn't tell him that after years of being an escort, of befriending everyone else involved in the fabrication of the Hunger Games, she is a bit loss as for who to talk to. She has been _through something_. She has been on the other side of the war, and she has realized that for all her protests, that that is perhaps where she most belongs now. So, here she is now. Right side or wrong? She doesn't know.)

She waves her hand daintily at the birds. 

“What are _these_?”

Haymitch looks down at the birds as if he's seeing them for the first time.

“Geese,” he answers bluntly. “I'm training them to attack. Mostly they just shit all over the place.”

“Quaint,” Effie answers. 

“I named that one after you,” Haymitch says, pointing to the one that sits near her feet. “Hey, E.T.”

The little goose looks up at him and then squawks again. 

“You're going to goddamn hate it here, you know,” Haymitch says abruptly. 

“I rather excel at anything I put my mind to,” she answers archly, lifting her chin. 

“Suppose you do,” Haymitch admits. “You best come on in then. And shut the curtains. I don't want anyone just thinkin' they can wander in here off the street.” 

“Perish the thought, Haymitch,” Effie says (and she's actually smiling). “I promise to leave your reputation as a grump entirely untarnished.” 

“Long as you do that,” Haymitch answers with a nod. He exaggerates his grimace to cover up that he's tempted to smile.


End file.
